OFS and CommScope have entered into a new eight-year partnership to help ensure the availability of optical fibre supply to CommScope for use in its customers’ networks. The specific terms of the agreement have not been publicly disclosed, but it represents an investment from both companies in order to address the increased demand for greater bandwidth.

Demand for optical fibre is creating a worldwide shortage with manufacturers scrambling to bring more production capacity on line.

The latest announcement comes from Japanese electronics giant Furukawa Electric, which plans to nearly double its 2016 optical fibre manufacturing capacity by 2019 and to increase its optical cable manufacturing capacity through the operations of OFS, its wholly owned subsidiary.

OFS has expanded the AccuRibbon DC fibre-optic cable product range to include fibre counts up to 864 – up from the current maximum of 432. These 100-per-cent gel-free ribbon cables will be available in dielectric and metallic/armoured versions.

OFS (booth 2925) will showcase its award-winning TeraWave ultra low loss (ULL) singlemode optical fibre during OFC 2017. Designed for terrestrial long-haul systems, OFS says this fibre combines the best aspects of highly-engineered submarine fibres with cabling performance that is similar to conventional singlemode terrestrial fibre. Specifically, TeraWave ULL fibre is optimised for long haul transmission in the C- and L-bands (1530–1625nm) at 100Gb/s, 400Gb/s and beyond.

OFS announces the availability of AccuRiser indoor/outdoor ribbon cable designed to enables more cost-effective and faster installation of connections between data centres and other buildings that require high-fibre-count, flame rated cables

OFS used last week’s OFC exhibition in Anaheim, California, to introduce TeraWave SCUBA Ocean optical fibre, which is optimised for 100Gb/s optical transmission and above in submarine cable systems.

Using a combination of the industry’s largest effective area, excellent cabling performance in the C- and L-bands, and low attenuation, the new fibre enables reliable coherent transmission at 100Gb/s and beyond over transoceanic distances at the highest channel counts, the company claims.

Cable maker OFS introduced the latest member of its microcable product line, the MiDia 2GX cable, at the FTTH Conference 2016 in Luxembourg.

The new microcable has been designed for ease of installation in the high-density portion of metro networks. Available with fibre counts of 144, 192 and 288, the new microcable allows even greater numbers of fibres to be installed.

Fibre specialist OFS has expanded its terrestrial long-haul product line with the addition of TeraWave Ultra Low Loss (ULL) fibre, which is a large effective area fibre with better than 0.17dB/km loss at 1550nm.

Aiming at the growing market for terabit transport, TeraWave ULL fibre is an ultra-low-loss version of the TeraWave product family, which has been designed with large effective area to improve the performance of long-distance coherent systems.

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